Simon Thorneycroft and Jonathan Hodgson

Software Factories as the future?

Well first of all what is a software factory?

"General speaking, software factories represent a collection of guidance that helps architects and developers build a specific kind of application."

The guidance tends to be a combination of written documentation, guidance packages and reference implementations.

The general consensus is that today's software developments are too often one-off bespoke pieces of work and to move forward we need to use reusable frameworks & models that we can bolt together for increased productivitiy and quality. To me it seems we are getting there on the one hand with tools like .NET framework, Application Blocks and to an extent SharePoint but on the other hand we've still a long way to go.

Anders Hejlsberg video talks along the same lines, moving developers from one-offs to generic solution builders - it's a fundamental change.

Also check of the Guidance Automation Toolkit, which is an "extension to Visual Studio 2005 which allows architects to author integrated reusable assets including frameworks, components and patterns". One example is the Web Services Software Factory (download) which provides information on building web service applications. Note: if you are installing on Vista, follow these tips to run the install as Administator.

More on software factories in the latest issue of Architecture Journal and Measuring Success with Software Factories and Visual Studio Team System.